


This is Dean Winchester, sorry I missed your call.

by Ladyboo



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anxiety, Blood, Depression, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Insomnia, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Panic Attacks, READ AUTHORS NOTE, Stanford Era AU, Unrequited Love, pre-series AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-07-24 18:42:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16180940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladyboo/pseuds/Ladyboo
Summary: He comes apart in a series of exhales and half missed beats of his heart.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This reads as hurried and disjointed in sections because it's supposed to. There are heavy, detailed descriptions of panic attacks and Sam's spiral into depression, and this is crafted to be a piece to make the reader uncomfortable, because I took steps to make Sam and his panic and anxiety and problems something that can be recognized in ones self.  
> That said, if you do read, I hope you enjoy, and let me know what you think.

He felt like his hands hadn’t stopped shaking since that first week of class. 

Scholarship student, an exemplary case, the administrative had been more than kind in giving him one of the studio apartments in student housing. The prospect of having his own space of any kind had been absolutely thrilling until the door had clicked shut behind him. Bigger than any of the motel rooms he’d ever set foot in, he had a tiny kitchen, an actual couch to go with his television, a desk for the laptop he needed to buy and it was all so...so...

Daunting. 

Overwhelming.

_ Silent _ .

He’d never done well with the quiet and Dean always said he talked too much, but there could be none of the heart racing, finger numbing anxiety that planted itself in his chest whenever the silence fell if he talked enough to make it not quiet. He couldn’t fill a space this big by himself though no matter how hard he tried and nothing felt right. The lights in the bathroom were too bright and everything in the kitchen was the right height for a change and he didn’t know what to do with himself. It all grated on his bones, and why did he need a table with more than one chair when none of his classmates wanted to talk to him, wanted to study or hang out?

It was like he didn’t know how to talk civies outside of a hunt, and Sam had to remind himself that he was one of them now. Like he said the wrong things, or he didn’t blink enough, stared at them too harshly because he needed to know what kind of threat they were and he couldn’t turn it off any more than he could figure out how to live around it. He’d gotten too used to living in somebody else's pocket and breathing with someone else’s lungs and he didn’t know how to do either on his own now. 

He hadn’t stopped shaking since the haunting, aching, deafening loneliness had managed to set in that first week, and Sam wasn’t sure he was ever going to stop. 

Because three weeks in, a Thursday at half past three in the afternoon after his Constitutional Politics and Legal Ethics courses and Sam barely managed to get the door latched behind him before he fell to his knees. Backpack choked full of textbooks and a laptop that cost more money than he’d ever seen in one place slipped sideways off his shoulder, he couldn’t tell if that gasping, wet sound from his chest and throat meant he couldn’t breathe or that he was going to vomit. So he slapped a hand out, so he grappled for the trash can to his left where it sat butted up against the kitchen cabinets and pulled it against his chest. 

His hands shook so hard that the plastic bin rattled when he pulled it across the white, white tile and it groaned beneath the harsh pressure of his hold. Like he might crack it, like it might cave in, and he would have cared about that a little more if he hadn’t started gagging on the suffocating, sour feeling that clogged up his throat. His back curled, his shoulders drew in tight toward his chest and he retched on nothing until his chest screamed from the pressure of it. 

But the bin held nothing more than a few drops of saliva, empty from where he’d taken the trash out before going to his first class. Heart thundering in his chest, the backs of his eyes burned and Sam tipped sideways, slumped heavy onto the floor with that stupid plastic trash can tucked up against his chest. Like it could comfort him somehow, like it could calm the frantic throbbing of his agitated heart, like it could replace the way Dean would have crushed him against his chest. 

It was strange, the way his sobbing sounded an awful lot like screaming when it echoed in a trash bin like that. 

Slowly, with an exhausted ache that dug its claws marrow deep, his body wound around the trash can until his thighs bumped up against the bottom of it. He wound his arms around it and held on just for something solid against him, tried to press it as close to his chest as he could to try and sooth the war drum of his heart. Or maybe he tried to muffle it, he couldn’t necessarily tell, couldn’t hear much past the wet punch of his gasping, diaphragm deep breaths. They echoed into that stupid trash can, kicked up the way everything smelled like the peel from the banana he’d had for breakfast but he couldn’t breathe past the heaving, burning vice grip that had wrapped around his lungs. 

Somebody was going to hear him, somebody was going to get curious, but let them, maybe somebody would talk to him then, actually ask him what was going on in his head. Maybe somebody would finally touch him then, even act like they might care. Because he hadn’t heard a single word from anybody unless it had been a professor or classmate answering a question or the cheery people in the library just doing their job and he’d gotten so god damn tired of listening to the sound of his own voice as he tried to fill the horrifying silence that lived in his apartment. Because nobody had touched him since Dean and that hug outside of that motel room, nobody had even tried to shake his hand and he couldn’t feel his brothers arms around him anymore. 

A low, warbling, wet sound that boomed from between his lips like a gunshot and Sam kicked the trash can away from him. It didn’t help, it was cold and unforgiving and it didn’t have a heartbeat or legs that wind through his, it didn’t sift blunt fingers through his hair. His arms came up instead, covered his face and blocked out most of the light and his hands found the curling strands of his hair. A twist of his fingers and they knotted there, they pulled there, a harsh bite at the back of his skull just so he could feel something past the cardiac arrest anthem that his heart seemed hellbent on. 

_ “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” _

The meat of an arm quieted him, swallowed up his sobbing, and it was with his teeth sank into that muscle that he screamed and screamed and screamed.

Something popped in his ears, like when they drove through the mountains and the pressure changed and everything got heavy. He could feel it in his head and he could feel it in his chest and Sam whined against it. But he unwound his fingers from his hair and the room was white, too bright and too empty for its furniture, too clean, motel rooms were never this put together, they weren’t ever this spotless. An arm under himself, a hand to the floor where it had been warmed by his body, it was like he couldn’t stop shaking, like he couldn’t really catch his breath but he forced himself upright, one hand in his pocket even as his back thunked to his front door because nobody could get in and get to him if he blocked it with his weight. 

God, his face was wet, hot and sticky and he wasn’t quite sure when he’d started crying just that he hadn’t stopped, just that his hands shook while he grasped his phone with both hands, just that it felt like his lungs wanted to swallow themselves whole. 

He didn’t want to do this anymore, he didn’t want to be here, he shouldn’t have ever left. People like him weren’t built for this kind of life, there was something wrong in his brain, his bones, there was something missing. His soul probably and he knew it, he’d left it standing there in that motel parking lot with murky eyes and a clenched jaw and Sam didn’t know if he’d managed to start getting his crying under control previously or if he just cried harder now. 

His fingers skittered over the keys though, shook even while he managed to eventually punch in a familiar number. Caught between his fingers then, held to his face, but it just rang, and rang, and rang until he wanted to scream all over again. Until it did the little dial tone complete sound it always did and he heard his brothers voice like he hadn’t wanted to hear it. 

_ “This is Dean Winchester, sorry I missed your call. If this is important, leave me a message or call John.” _

 

-

 

He cried the whole night and didn’t sleep a single bit.

Too scared to close his eyes, too scared to wake up alone, too scared of knowing that it hadn’t all been some horrible, nauseating dream. 

Forever made up of too long legs and a too hopeful heart that he could feel sifting into pieces with every breath he took, but Sam figured out quick that he could wedge himself into the space beneath the sink, hidden if the door opened. 

He hadn’t really stopped crying yet and he called for the second time that day.

_ “This is Dean Winchester, sorry I missed your call. If this is important, leave me a message or call John.” _

 

-

  
  


He couldn’t feel his fingers. 

He’d noticed on Sunday that his nail beds had taken a purplish hue to them, his fingertips pale. When he pressed them to his face, they were icy, chilled like that time they’d accidently fallen asleep outside in upper New York in October. The joints ached a bit, and he didn’t know what else he’d expected when he hadn’t yet seemed to really stop shaking. But Sam couldn’t feel his fingers, and he couldn’t feel his toes, and he wondered if he looked as cold as he felt. 

He wondered if he was supposed to care. 

September had sank its teeth in and though the long thermometer somebody in housing had taped in his window before move in read somewhere around 76 degrees, he was cold. 

A slow slip of ice into his bones, so deep that no amount of scuffing his hands over his arms would friction chase it away and it had taken hold of him before he’d even really noticed it was there. He wasn’t sure when it had started, maybe with the shaking, or maybe it’d always been there, maybe the winter's breath in his lungs had just been kept at bay by Dean’s smiles and John’s voice. Maybe he’d done this to himself, but he deserved it then if he had, didn’t he? 

The hoodie he’d used some of his monthly stipend for was too big even on his long body, feel past his hips and his fingertips and the interior was soft, softer than any piece of clothing he’d ever owned before. The sales clerk had given him a bit of a strange look when he’d purchased it, 82 degrees and the thin, tall boy had come in wanting a sweatshirt, but he’d left with it like he’d wanted and it felt a little bit, it helped just enough. Something to try and help him warm up from the inside when the sun didn’t seem to know how to do its job right, and Sam got through class with his head tipped low into the neck of it and his numb, purple tipped hands stuffed into the pouch pocket. 

Because he couldn’t feel his fingers, he couldn’t feel his hands, and every day it slipped a little further until he wondered if he’d be able to really feel a damn thing at all. Pressure when he gripped a pencil, when he gathered up his books or tried to wrap a hand around his phone, everything was just pressure anymore like his body didn’t know how to register any sensation past that, like it’d forgotten. He’d stopped trying to get his classmates to talk to him, sat like the wolf among them instead and watched them with to sharp eyes that didn’t blink often enough while he listened to the things they did or didn’t say. 

What point was there in trying to touch somebody when nobody even wanted to talk to him?

So his hands lived in his pockets and that was fine, he couldn’t hurt people like that, he couldn’t poison people like that. He couldn’t make them get sloppy and fall apart, he couldn’t ruin their lives like he had John, like he had Dean. So he shied away from touch if ever it was offered, so he watched every single person who ever passed with too bright eyes and Sam felt like the predator that they thought him to be. 

He couldn’t do to someone else what he’d done to them, and Dean would have called him back by now if he didn’t think the two of them better off, right?

But he felt like he was going to shake apart from the inside, and the library wasn’t the sort of place for this kind of breakdown. For all that he’d learned to breathe through the anxiety that had made a home for itself in his blood, he could feel the chatter in his teeth and the tightening in his throat as he stuffed his things in his book bag. Because there were people here, people who hated him, people who didn’t talk to him and shied away and his legs might have moved too fast but his footfalls were silent and that was all that really mattered. 

One of the study rooms was empty though, a whole line of them, open doors and shadowy insides and he tossed himself into one, door shut tight behind him. Back to the hard brick wall and his legs were still too long, they bent where he tried to extend them and they braced against the door, wedged it shut tight. He wouldn’t have made it home and he wasn’t sure he wanted to, would have fallen apart no matter where he tried to lock himself away. 

The dark inside the little room meant he didn’t have to stare at how empty it was, how alone he’d made himself.

A high, reedy sound, and Sam stuffed the meat of his palm between his teeth, burning eyes impossibly wide in the dark as the bone break kick of panic stopped tormenting him at the edges and finally attacked. And he couldn’t breathe past the suffocation swell of his tongue, he couldn’t hear past the thunder pump of his blood, but his vision narrowed in on nothing until the spill of light from beneath the door darkened out of his tunnel vision view. 

He couldn’t make a sound though, he couldn’t get caught, they would find him if they heard him.

He couldn’t let anybody find him like this, what kind of hunter did this make him?

His Dad would be so ashamed of him.

He already was though, wasn’t he?

Because his Dad had gotten a look on his face that Sam had never recognized before but he knew enough to know it couldn’t have been anything good. God, the man probably hated him, Dean probably did too, they didn’t have a Mom because of him and he knew it even if nobody ever said a single thing about it. He was smart, but smart didn’t mean a single thing if his fingers weren’t fast enough on the reload like he needed to be, smart didn’t keep people alive, smart didn’t make him useful. 

He couldn’t breathe.

A near silent, thin wheeze filtered from his lungs instead and the air he pulled in through his nose was cold. Numb hands and cold breath and he stared in the dark at the closed door, sank his body a bit further against the wall to wedge himself in tighter. He spread his feet a little further on the door until they planted firm, they wouldn’t get in even if they heard him, they weren’t going to get to him even if they found him.

Was it that he couldn’t breathe, or had he simply forgotten that he needed to?

Over the wet slosh pound of his blood in his ears, there was noise, that was the handle jiggling of someone trying to get in. Hand cramming further to his mouth to silence himself, the fat of his palm caught against his teeth and Sam pushed harder, planted his weight in his knees, his feet. He could  _ see _ it moving, the up down jerk of it as someone tried to get in, the press of weight against the door as someone tried to open it. 

The whole damn world seemed to slam to a halt.

He couldn't hear the desperate, violent pulse of his heart anymore like it had simply stopped, and he couldn’t feel the sharp thread of panic in the back of his skull anymore like it had just been snuffed out entirely. The wheezing planted low in his lungs just stopped and everything felt cold, frozen over down to the very core and Sam didn’t blink. He just stared, he just used his too long legs and his hunters strength to keep the door barred shut. Voices outside, two separate tones, higher, female and he couldn’t hear a word he said but the handle stopped moving, and the pressure gave up. And the voices eased off until he couldn't hear them anymore, until he was alone in the dark with the throb of his heart.

Until he was alone in the little study room with the wet, slick copper rich blood on his tongue. Alone like he’d been since he’d opened his stupid, too chatty mouth and tossed himself out into the world because he wanted to be normal. Alone like he was going to be, people like him didn’t get friends, he’d had a friend, a family, and he’d made the decision to walk away. 

He pulled his teeth out of his numb hand without even a wince, and there would be teeth marks there, cuts there, he’d tasted blood from there. He would need to clean his mouth off somehow lest he look like the freak they probably thought he was. Sam fished his phone out of his pocket instead.

But everything had kicked back into gear, and the shaking had slipped itself back in place with the cushion of the harsh burst beating of his heart like it wanted to break out of his chest, he’d never been good at being alone. 

He hadn’t ever wanted to be alone. 

_ “This is Dean Winchester, sorry I missed your call. If this is important, leave me a message or call John.” _

 

-

 

He’d stopped wanting to talk to his classmates somewhere along the way. He didn’t want to hear what they had to say, he didn’t want to see their face, he didn’t want to hear the things they said to him, if they ever said anything at all. He wanted them to stop ignoring him, but he just wanted them to stop existing even more so. 

Sam wondered what it meant when the curling, oil slick voice in his head walked him through the what if’s of showing half the civies just what he could do to them. 

He wondered if he should have been more afraid that he’d started to not recognize his face in the mirror. 

_ “This is Dean Winchester, sorry I missed your call. If this is important, leave me a message or call John.” _

 

-

 

He only slept two hours a night, if he even slept.

He was too cold, iced over from the inside by the bones that used to support him before they’d decided it suited them better to turn to frozen stone. He was too alone with an apartment that never got dirty because he cleaned it with a militaristic, manic kind of focus that otherwise festered under his skin with nowhere to go. And though he’d gone numb three and a half weeks in, by week six he still knew that the deep green sheets he’d bought were too soft against his scarred, calloused skin, and it was only going to get worse the more he washed them. 

Too much, too much, too much and it wasn’t ever going to get any better.

The quiet was the worst. 

He could try to fill it during the day, music from his laptop that he liked for all that he’d only ever complained in the car. And it worked to an extent before it brought questions or comments to his lips that went horribly unanswered the moment they took to the air, and it all crashed down on him again. There were no responses because there was no Dean, because there was no Dad, nobody to talk to, nobody to listen, nobody to notice if he just stopped talking all together. 

But there was no Dean at night and he’d never felt so alone in his life. Nobody breathing less than three feet away because they could afford a room with two beds this time around, no bare feet slipping against the backs of his knees because they couldn’t. No blankets stolen, no pillows found on the floor, no quiet, half drunken sleep talk that he couldn’t ever understand even though he’d tried. 

No big brother, ten foot tall who spent every night between Sam and whatever lurked beyond a locked and salted door.

So he didn’t sleep, or maybe it was that he just couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t get the paranoid racket in his brain to simmer down enough that he could hear his breathing past it, couldn’t get his body to uncoil from that teetering edge of hyper awareness he’d been conditioned to keep it balanced on. It was just so  _ quiet _ , and he spent most nights with his body curled into half of the window that spanned the corner of the room his bed butted up against. Back against the wall, feet pulled up so he didn’t disturb the little congregation of succulents he had collected in an attempt to feel less alone, he could see the whole apartment from where he’d wedged himself. 

Better than the few nights he’d simply locked himself away in the bathroom in the beginning, but he didn’t sleep unless he crashed and that just gave him too much time to think. Because he only ever slept in two hour intervals when his body finally forced him to and he hated it. Hated it because then he couldn’t hear what happened outside even six floors up like he was, hated it because then he couldn’t watch the door, there was nobody here to watch his back if he didn’t do it good enough himself. 

Somewhere along the way he’d stopped tasting the things that he ate. 

Two thousand calories a day, he still ran ten miles without losing his breath every single morning before the sun came up and he even got all of his homework done as soon as it was given to him. He couldn’t be an ideal student if he didn’t have the social circle to go along with it, and he couldn’t be the perfect hunter if he didn’t have anything to keep him in the game, but he could try, couldn’t he? Better to do the absolute best he could possibly manage to do than not do anything at all, than not be enough. But he’d never been enough, not really, not in the ways it mattered anyway and it was like he’d never even known how to catch his footing in the first place. 

Food didn’t taste like much of anything anymore because there was nobody trying to fight him over things on his plate even though they had their own. Sleep didn’t hold any appeal when there was nobody there to help if something went wrong, and he was almost scared to close his eyes. Because then he wasn’t alone, then he wasn’t so lonely and scared and he’d started dreaming of things he couldn’t have. 

He’d started dreaming about  _ Dean _ , and Sam was terrified that he wouldn’t ever want to wake up. 

Murky green eyes and freckles across his skin like the shimmering fireworks that fell in sparkling waves, the ones that always looked so soft to the touch. The way the skin around his eyes would crinkle when he smiled hard enough, the warm smoke of his laughter. The way he might have sounded if he’d ever said Sam’s name with something  _ more _ , the way he might have tasted if Sam had ever gotten brave enough to catch his fingers in his brothers short hair and smear their mouths together like he’d wanted to since he was ten years old. 

He was scared because he wanted to just close his eyes and sleep, wanted to fall into that dream and feel Dean’s hands in his hair. 

He was scared because he didn’t want to have to open them again and not have his brother’s voice in his ear as the glaring silence set in again. 

They’d painted the window sill white, the same white as the rest of the room, which matched the tiles on the bathroom walls. It matched the sleek tiles that floored the entire place, and they’d been cold against his bare toes that night he’d gotten brave enough to take his socks off. But the window sill was white and it was the perfect width for him to clambour up into, one side seamed against the window and his legs pulled up nearly to his chest. The streetlights outside didn’t reach far enough up to give him any of their glow, but he was used to the darkness more than anything else these days. It didn’t hurt his eyes, it didn’t set a rattling in his skull and a sour burn on his tongue, he didn’t want the warmth of the sun when he couldn’t feel it. 

Four days this time, four days that his eyes hadn’t closed longer than to blink or to shower and he could see the door in his periphery. Locked, chained, barred from where he’d wedged a chair up against the handle, he needed to water his succulents. Loose sweatpants, easier to run in when he finally got off his post for the morning and his feet looked thin against the window sill, his ankles looked delicate where the cuffs of his sweats had ridden up, it had been years since Sam had thought of himself as small. 

He felt it now though, never felt like anything else, small and alone, locked out from the inside and forgotten all too conveniently. 

It would have hurt more if it hadn’t made sense, but they didn’t need him, not really. They had each other, worked in a polished tandem because their Dad always knew just what to say and Dean always knew just what to do, he’d always been the odd one out. Hunts were easier when there were less people to look after anyway, less people to lose if there were less people to have to find in the first place, he’d always been slow. 

His arms limp in the divot that his chest and thighs formed and his hands cradled his phone there. 

He’d done this too many times already, and every unreturned call was a message that he got loud and clear. A glutton for something though, desperate for some kind of punishment and Sam’s fingers curled a little around the phone. Until it creaked under the press of his fingers, until his over adjusted eyes watched the color drain from his knuckles, until the bite of the plastic into his skin stopped his head from spinning quite so much, his breath from frosting with that ever present panic. 

That was new. 

But he didn’t have time for new, not right now anyway, because he’d done this too many times already, but Sam’s fingers pressed down keys that he knew by heart, and his brothers voice washed over him by the time he lifted the phone to his ear. 

_ “This is Dean Winchester, sorry I missed your call. If this is important, leave me a message or call John.” _

 

-

 

He didn’t remember midterms, not really. 

He remembered the fact that he was supposed to care, he remembered that he’d known he should have been concerned, but he didn’t think he had been. He must have eaten the food in his fridge though, because things had gone missing that he hadn’t thrown away, and he must have gone to his classes because he received emails over the weekend outlining his scores on his tests. He must have been alive then for all that he hadn’t felt it, glazed over with a heavy handed fugue state that hung around like a midnight fog. 

It was like he had blinked on the Friday of week seven, and his eyes had come back open on the Saturday of week eight with a wild ringing in his ears, a tight flurry in his chest where his heart lay. But he didn’t remember leaving his apartment, and he didn’t remember eating, he didn’t remember sleeping. 

Something sour and acidic in the back of his throat and Sam watched the world with wild eyes while he jerked his phone out of his pocket. 

_ “This is Dean Winchester, sorry I missed your call. If this is important, leave me a message or call John.” _

 

-

 

He didn’t think he’d ever cried harder than when his body finally forced him to sleep, only to wake up alone hours later with all his pleasant dreams a lie. 

He sobbed then, body curled around a pillow and his breathing strained and Sam muffled the sounds of his desperate not quite screaming into that soft fabric. 

_ “This is Dean Winchester, sorry I missed your call. If this is important, leave me a message or call John.” _

 

-

 

The scale in the bathroom that had lived under the sink since before he moved in said he’d lost twelve pounds since he’d started classes.

Sam wondered why he didn’t care. 

He wondered what his Dad would have thought of him now that he’d failed at something else too. 

_ “This is Dean Winchester, sorry I missed your call. If this is important, leave me a message or call John.” _

 

-

 

He knew how to dress a wound with his eyes closed. 

Technically he’d never tried it with his eyes closed, but the ability to do stitches between his own shoulder blades probably counted for something. But he had doctored himself enough, he had doctored his brother enough to know how much pressure certain wounds took, to know how much a split in the skin would bleed based on things like depth and severity. He knew his own pain tolerance, and just the same he knew when to grit his teeth and ignore the way a feeling made him want to vomit. 

Werewolf, about 4 miles off campus in West Menlo Park, twenty-seven year old male who had been granted custody of his six year old little twin sisters. He hadn’t thought himself a danger to them, he’d thought everything would have been fine, and maybe things had been. God, Sam hoped they had been, he hoped things hadn’t always been so dismal for the girls, he hoped their brother had been a good person. 

No amount of hope would ever wipe away the memory of that man gone feral under the siren song of the full moon, of one little girl pulled to pieces and bled out on the stairs while the other sobbed and screamed and tried to crawl away from what had once been her brother. The gunshot to his shoulder hadn’t done anything other than stagger him, and Sam had thought he’d be able to save at least one of the girls. 

He’d barely been able to save himself. 

A bullet between the creatures eyes, the second of the little girls bled out from where her brother had chewed open her abdomen and slit her legs into ribbons. Her very protector had been the death of her, enough blood on her little body that her blond hair had been tinged with red and what remained of her sister hadn’t been any better, and Sam wished he could say that there had been some kind of recognition in those wild eyes.  

He just wanted  _ his _ brother, he just wanted his Dad. 

He remembered finals, taking them at least even if he didn’t remember getting to them or how he’d done. Too many days that had all blended together until he wasn’t sure if he’d eaten, until he wasn’t sure if he’d even left his room. But he would remember this, he would feel this for days yet, and Sam wished that he’d just stayed curled on his window ledge and stared out into the rest of the world

Door latched behind him, apartment dark, but his hands had been too slick to hold onto the needle. 

World gone bright like the bathroom had been fitted with floodlights, he was lucky nobody had tried to stop him on his way back. Because he looked like a madman, blood splashed up along his throat, across the left side of his face and his lashes had gone wet and spiked with it. Blood on his face, his neck where the creature had tried to get a grip on him and it was there on the deep, jagged slashes across his side when he finally managed to peel what remained of his cotton shirt over his shoulders. 

It  _ hurt _ , but his hands didn’t shake, and his head had gone breathlessly, blissfully quiet for the first time in months. 

Sam stared at his own reflection with eyes unglazed and took in the bags beneath them, the sickly pallor that had colored his skin. He didn’t look like himself, he didn’t feel like himself, and he couldn’t seem to find the power to panic like he should have, and instead he just ached. Because he felt human for the first time in months, felt like himself all because he’d nearly lost his life, because he ran the risk yet of bleeding out in his bathroom, and how would the school explain that?

Easier now to grip that threaded needle, and he knew just how to turn to spear it through the puckered skin of his side. How much pressure to pinch his flesh with, how tight to pull the sutures, how to breathe through the puncture and inhale on the slide of thread that quickly turned dark with blood. But the fresh spill of it turned sluggish, slowly, and for all that it hurt, he felt a little less like his lung was going to try and learn how to slip out of his body from between his ribs. 

And there was so much blood on his hands, but he knew his face even if he didn’t recognize the shell he’d somehow become. He was better than this, but better didn’t matter when he was scared, scared of what he’d become and what he could hardly ever feel anymore. Sam didn’t care much about better, he just wanted to not feel so empty for just a little while longer before that disconnected, North Atlantic fog rolled back into his blood. 

Blood all over his fingers but he didn’t think he’d ever felt quite this calm when he picked up his phone, not in a long time. 

Five sharp, electric ringing sounds, and Sam held his own gaze in the mirror as his brothers voice washed over him like the panic soon would. 

_ “This is Dean Winchester, sorry I missed your call. If this is important, leave me a message or call John.” _


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is unedited because I wanted to get it out and up, so theres going to be typos and messed words, sorry bout that lovelies. That said, tada!

He didn’t know which was worse, having to deal with two feet of snow or having to deal with two feet of snow at six in the morning. They were the same thing at this point, bubbled up together until all he knew was snow, too much damn snow and the fact that it fell in sheets in this part of the country all wrapped up in a kind of cold that made the bones in his legs ache. He hated snow. He hated the cold, hated winter when he couldn’t see the way glittering snowflakes clung to hi-

“How long does this take?”

He needed to get out of this state, he needed to get out of the snow that didn’t do a single thing but make his cynical heart hurt for things it couldn’t ever have. 

The tech blinked bleary eyes at him, and Dean felt the distinct urge to hit him. He wanted to hit a lot of people these days, anybody that looked at him too long, anybody that looked at him sideways. Nobody smiled right, nobody laughed right, and he’d never been a particularly patient man to begin with, but it just seemed to have gotten worse over the last few months. 

“I don’t know man, probably about ten minutes?”

There must have been something on his face, something about the expression he gave the kid, because the phone tech went pale, widened eyes and a thick swallowing sound. 

“I’ll see if I can speed it up any, sir.”

He hated people.

A cool gaze, a sharp, narrowed expression and he watched the teenager scurry over to his computer once more. He reeked of cheap weed like the stuff they clouded themselves in when they were younger and John left them alone long enough for them to get out of their own heads. Kid had the bloodshot eyes and the unkempt hair that went with it like he hadn’t bothered to try and fix himself up before work, and Dean didn’t understand the people out in this part of the country. In too much of a rush to hurry up and try to fuck somebody over, they made his jaw hurt from how much time he’d spent grinding his teeth. 

_ He’d _ always liked the way New England looked in the winter, wild flurry snowfall and cold flushed cheeks, and Dean would be damned if he stayed here any longer than he had to with memories that weren’t ever enough. 

Sam had gotten on that bus, and Dad had taken Dean for a hunt because Winchester men dealt with their grief best when killing something.

A hunt that had gone sideways like all of them seemed to do in some shape or form anymore and he’d gone headlong into a reservoir for all that he’d been supposedly safe over by the shore. He still didn’t know what had gone wrong, and he didn’t even really care all that much apart from the airborne and the underwater. He just knew that something had and that he’d spent too much time puking up dirt that shouldn’t have been in his body to begin with by the time his Dad had gotten him out of the water. It wasn’t until the spirit had been dealt with and he’d stopped heaving that Dean had had the chance to catch his breath and realize that things were gone. 

Like his shoes, his favorite lighter.

Like his phone that had taken money to replace, something they didn’t have an awful lot of to spare. He never left John’s side anyway, not often. His Dad had just hauled him to his feet and pulled him toward the truck because they’d drove together, it looked like they were going to be leaving that way too. Nervous and protective ever since Sam had left them like he was going to vanish too. John had kept Dean close, monitored his breathing through the night and hadn’t let him hunt solo for three whole weeks. 

He would have been insulted if he hadn’t appreciated it. The constant of somebody else in his space like he couldn’t get otherwise anymore. So he’d stuck around. So he’s followed his Dad around like he hadn’t done since he was ten years old. So he hadn’t kicked up a fuss and he hadn’t bothered getting a new phone. Like he hadn’t bothered to not get a room with two beds. He just  _ hadn’t _ . Hadn’t bothered, hadn’t tried, had told himself he hadn’t cared. He’d grown compliant and dependent upon the company of a person that he didn’t know how to depend on like that. It had been a little bit easier to ignore just how alone he was now without the constant, silent reminder of a phone that never rang. 

But his Dad had had some things to take care of that didn’t involve him. Dean knew enough to know that they’d needed to go their separate ways before they either suffocated one another or shot the other in a bout of frustration like he’d watched happen with Sam. They’d never really been that close before, never had to be. They’d never learned to move with a dancing, fluid grace, to finish one anothers unspoken sentences and catch an entire conversation in a subtle shift in body language. 

His Dad wasn’t Sam. For as much as Dean didn’t want him to be, sometimes he just wished he didn’t feel so alone in a motel room at full occupancy. 

He just wanted his brother back. Even with the what if’s that he’d never been brave enough to try and find answers to for all that he’d recognized that look in his brothers bright hazel eyes for exactly what it was. 

“Sir, I-I have your phone ready.”

The clock on the wall showed it had only been six minutes. Just barely even with how the minute hand hadn’t yet flicked over, and his flat expression went first from the clock on the wall to the kid where he stood. Pipsqueak hadn’t been that pale the last time Dean had looked at him. Mixed with the too long blond of his hair and that shade of anxious really didn’t do him any justice. But he had places to be. He had things to do, like throw himself into his car and get out of this damn state before he got eaten alive by all the stupid snow. 

Better things than making some seventeen year old named Jeremy with a sideways name tag piss himself at six in the morning even if he wanted to. 

There was nobody here to say his name in a chastising manner. Nobody to laugh once they were in the safety of the car. It just wasn’t the same, wasn’t worth it. 

“It took that long to transfer over contacts?”

“No sir, I also, uhm, I transfered over all of yo-your voicemails, too. They won’t sync in for a few minutes, but they’re there!”

That should have impressed him, probably. It looked like it was supposed to anyway. Sounded like it with how quick the kids voice had gotten at the end, how hopeful. But Dean just blinked at him once and waited. The phone fit easy in his palm, Motorola starTac that flipped open and shut just like it was supposed to. He waved a hand at whatever else the kid was saying. He’d already paid, he didn’t need to deal with this kind of awkward stammering. He missed an eighteen year old with a quick smile who talked back to him with a mouth dripping too smart sass. 

He needed to get out of this Goddamn state. 

The doors rattled shut behind him. His departure aided by the kick of the breeze and Dean swore, tucked his face a little further into his jacket as he stomped to his car. Cuffs of his jeans were going to be soaked. He’d be lucky if his pants weren’t wet up to his knees. Dean stuffed his phone into his pocket with his right hand while the left pulled free his keys. 

There was snow down the back of his jacket and his shirt by the time he got the drivers door open. Inside of the car was still warm enough though that he could strip his jacket nearly as soon as the door had shut. Sure enough the back of his shirt had turned heavy and damp and he rolled his shoulders even as he tossed his jacket in the passenger seat. The leather crumpled there and that was good enough. Keys in the ignition and they barely turned in the cylinder before he gunned it out of the lot. The engine roared, the back tires swayed from side to side for a brief second in a loose fishtail that rocked the car before he was off, across the pavement and onto the empty main road. 

Nobody to laugh on the passenger side of the bench and he didn’t know why he bothered with half the things he did anymore. Snow damp leather half crumpled where another person should have been. There was nobody turned to face him on the other side of the car, no long leg pulled up with arms looped around it and no sharp chin pressed into a curved kneecap. Just a jacket that still fit a little too big around the shoulders and a little too long in the arms. An empty yoohoo bottle rattling around in the footwell that he still hadn’t bothered to pick up, he took off south just to get out of that damn lot. Just to try to outrun the fucking snow for all that he couldn’t outrun the stark silence in the other half of the cab.

A hand against the dash and a click as a cassette fell into place and he knew that song just like he knew all of them. Queen, Freddie Mercury crooning almost immediately from the stereo. He still hadn’t changed that tape out for something a little less gut wrenching.  _ His _ favorite from the way his shoulders used to go loose and the way his head would bob along. Dean’s hands curled slow and tight at the steering wheel until his knuckles went white.  _ Crazy Little Thing Called Love _ and he could taste the words in the back of his throat that he couldn’t find the nerve to sing aloud like he used to before everything had up and changed on him.

Too much snow and not enough sun, the speed limit was too slow within this city of people in a big hurry to ruin their lives. His new phone let out an all too cheery chime from where it still lay buried in his jacket.

And then another.

Another.

Another still, that stupid tone tripping over itself until it blended together into a harsh, irritating jangle and he’d never been so thankful for a red light. Foot slammed down hard on the brake and he dipped sideways, laid himself out against the bench until he could dig through the jackets lined pockets and pull free his new phone. It just kept vibrating though, a never ending hum that threatened to make his fingers numb and he scowled as he sat upright and opened the face. 

Four voicemails from Sammy.

Ten voicemails from Sammy.

Sixteen voicemails from Sammy.

Twenty-three voicemails from Sammy.

Thirty-eight voicemails from Sammy. 

The light had gone green and the car behind him had laid into its horn, but Dean felt like he was going to puke up his coffee all over the steering wheel. The phone kept buzzing in his hand and the number kept climbing the longer he stared until it capped out at forty-six voicemails from Sammy and a heavy thick, cloying kind of nausea to match the panic around his heart. Because forty-six voicemails meant forty-six missed calls, meant forty-six times that Sam had needed him that he hadn’t been there like he should have been, he’d never let the kid down before, had told Sam he would find him wherever the kid went, had meant it like breathing since Flagstaff. 

The other car finally went around him and Dean stared down at his phone when all he wanted to do was snap it in his fist. 

Harsh breaths pulled from between clenched teeth, Freddie Mercury kept on singing and the light turned red even as he fumbled with his phone, thumb jambing across the keypad until the first voicemail keyed up. Dated that first day Sam would have gotten to campus, because Dean kept track of that sort of thing even though he swore he didn’t, a bittersweet swell of false security told him that it was just Sam calling to complain, to tell him that he’d gotten there. But a checkup didn’t explain the other forty-five voicemails yet unheard, and Dean stared at his little brothers name before pulling his phone to his face. 

A crackling sob as soon as it started and that bone-break nausea crashed down all over again. Little brothers voice had never sounded quite so wrecked, so crushed wet and aching with something like three thousand miles between them, and his eyes burned as a sour sharp taste settled in the back of his throat. As he stared out into the intersection of a red light and listened to the only boy who had ever been worth everything start to lose his mind. 

_ “Dean!”  _

A wild, floodwater break of his name like he hadn’t heard since that werewolf when Sam was fifteen and his baby brothers body had been all clawed up. 

_ “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I ca-it’s so quiet and I can’t do it, I can’t do this, I don’t want to do this anymore. I’ll do better, and I won’t complain and I won't fuck up anymore, please just- Dean, I want to come home, I just want to come home!” _

Begging, voice panic thin and high and his hands didn’t seem to know how to move even as he watched that light go to green again. But his foot hit the gas, pressed at it like he didn’t know how to do anything else and Dean dimly heard the impala roar as he sped down a snowy city outskirt road faster than he really should have. But Sam’s voice echoed around in his ears until he couldn’t even hear Freddie Mercury anymore, until he pulled around a corner on a path he just seemed to know and followed a road sign that he could barely read for all the snow. But the voicemail had cut out on a low bellied sob of his name, and the stupid operator prompted him to hit pound if he wanted to hear the next one. 

He didn’t think he’d ever hit a button so hard or so fast in his life. 

_ “I shouldn’t have opened my fucking mouth, I should have just-just kept my head down and not said anything. It’s so quiet and I can’t, everythings too bright and clean and I can’t touch anything Dean, I-I’ll get it dirty.” _ A near silent sound, a whimper like he hadn’t heard since Sam was three and feverish with nightmares of things he shouldn’t have remembered.  _ “I’m scared, Dean. I’m so fucking scared.” _

I-89 West would take him toward Lake Michigan, skirt just beneath Chicago before shooting him further west where it became I-80, he made it a point to know a route to Stanford no matter where they went. Little to no traffic just after six in the morning like these people didn’t even want to drive in their own snow, he’d bundled up his entire life in the trunk of his car that morning just like he did every few days and there was no turning back. 

But he felt like he was going to be sick, too angry and anxious to be anything other than that particular brand of enraged that only Sam could ever inspire and Dean slung the impala onto the interstate headed southbound until he could merge west. 

 

-

 

He was scared to touch his phone. 

Those first two voicemails had turned into the first eleven, more time than he cared to think about spent listening to the start of a steady descent. There had been no mistaking it, no fooling himself into thinking it was anything else, and Dean had held that phone to his face even after the last voicemail had stopped playing. The fall of Sam Winchester from the break of his voice and the way he had cried, the confused desperation for an answer to why everybody hated him and the slow creeping hollow that had started to slip into his voice. He shouldn’t have heard this, it shouldn’t have happened, his little brother shouldn’t have fallen apart weeks ago with the great divide of a country standing between them. 

_ “I wanted to hit her. I wanted to- God Dean, I wanted to break her fucking face open just to get her to say something to me. I can’t do this, I can’t talk to these people and I don’t know how, I just. They’re so scared of me, and I can-I can see it on their faces even if they don’t get it.”  _ A swallow, a pause, little brother so silent Dean would have worried about him being gone all together if he didn’t know the sound of those lungs breathing intimately.  _ “Part of me thinks they should be.” _

“Sammy, no.”

Mournful and low, nothing for company but the phone perched on his thigh, he’d found the speakerphone option and utilized it readily. Silence in the car apart from the recorded crackle of Sam’s too quiet voice, a slowly drying leather jacket still slouched on the passenger's side of the bench, he hadn’t meant to say anything. His voice sounded strange to his own ears, echoed off the dash with a gut punched desperation that he hadn’t verbalized since he’d let Sam walk out of that fucking motel room. 

He switched lanes going faster than he should have to merge onto I-94 west bound just past Portage, Indiana, too pent up to bother with Chicago even though he would need gas in a few hours yet. Fourteen and a half hours, he’d driven longer for less but there was a burn in his eyes that he couldn’t even begin to tell himself was some kind of exhaustion. Because Sam sounded more defeated than Dean had ever heard him, more scared of himself than the kid had any right to be when Dean couldn’t reach out and cuff the back of his head.

Someone behind him laid into their horn but he just gripped the wheel tighter, pressed his foot harder against the gas pedal. Dimly, over the quiet sounds of the radio where he still hadn’t turned it off, where it still looped on that same damn Queen tape, he could hear the engine roar before the car flew faster down the pavement. He could hit the connecting for I-80 west before he needed to stop pull over and fill the tank if he pushed it right but he didn’t know how far that was, Moline maybe, Des Moines if he was lucky. But there was nobody to keep an eye on the map for him, nobody to try and figure out how much time it would take because he’d always been the one who could do that sort of math in his head. 

He’d never done well with being alone, and he felt that now more than ever. 

He’d never done well with being without  _ Sam _ .

“You have thirty-five unopened voicemails. Would you like to continue?”

“Fuck, no, no I don’t want to fucking conti-God  _ damn it, Sammy!” _

Because his brother could never do anything by halves, because Dean never should have let him get away. His little brother wouldn’t be an infinite amount of time away from him too far out of reach if Dean had just opened his mouth and said the right thing for a change, if he’d just bit the bullet and trusted his gut like he had with everything else in life. Fisted his hand in Sam’s hair and pulled their mouths together like he’d wanted to do since he was fourteen and his big eyed baby brother grinned at him, upside down over the edge of the couch and far too pleased with himself. He’d stuffed his hand down Mandy Stattenson’s pants instead, he’d run away from his problems until he had nowhere else to run. 

Until their Dad had noticed. 

Until John had looked him level in the face with Dean three sheets to the wind and told him it wouldn’t have mattered, voice the kind of grave that only happened when he was serious about something, it wouldn’t have meant a damn to him if it meant his boys were safe and happy. 

He should have gone to Stanford weeks ago. 

He shouldn’t have ever let Sam leave. 

Too little too late, and Dean glanced first at his phone on his lap and then the still loosely populated interstate, his speedometer. 

“Fuck.”

He could go fifteen faster.

 

-

 

_ “It’s my fault we don’t have a Mom. I know it is, nobody said anything but I know it is, it has to be. Dad wouldn’t hate me so much if it wasn’t my fault, we’d have a home, I’d...I don’t know what I did wrong. But it was something about me, there’s something wrong, I wake up and I feel it under my skin sometimes and I-I think I’m a monster, Dean.” _

 

-

 

He made it to Iowa City, he’d filled up this side of Cleveland only to go twenty-five over, he could have made it to Des Moines if he hadn’t sped so much. He kept telling himself that but there was no lying to himself in the end, he would have done it anyway either way. The faster he drove meant the sooner he got to Sam, he’d cut out roughly eighteen hours from his trip. 

Map spread out on the hood under the overhang of the fill station, he had three thousand miles total to go, give or take a hundred. That would have altered his numbers though, and he estimated the total trip would take him around forty-six hours. The irony of the number wasn’t lost on him, he would have laughed over it any other time, but his fingers had started to go numb and he’d used one of the cards to fill the tank. 

_ “I’m so cold. Which is stupid, I’m in California, I shouldn’t be cold. But I keep thinking I can see my own breath, and I can’t feel anything anymore. I...I rubbed salt on my skin this morning, just to make sure. I needed to make sure.” _

 

-

 

“Okay, slow down. I can’t understand a single thing you’re saying right now, son.”

“Dad, it's  _ Sam.” _

A sharp rustle to papers, something knocked over, a coffee cup maybe. John must not have cared, Dean didn’t hear him curse or try to retrieve it but he felt like he couldn’t breathe. He’d pulled over in Nebraska, some town called Ogallala and he wished could have laughed at it. Instead there was a heavy weight on his chest, something crushing on his ribs that refused to let up that tasted like his brothers name. 

He’d called his Dad, Sam’s alcohol slosh drawl still crawling through his blood, what else was he supposed to do?

_ “D’you have any fuckin’ clue ho-how pretty you are? You’d just look at me and smile and I just, I want to kiss your fucking- God damn it, Dean. How’m I supposed t’pretend to be normal when I love you like this?” _

How was he supposed to pretend not to care?

“What do you mean it’s Sam?”

Chest tight, heart pounding, he couldn’t feel his fingers but he gripped the wheel all the same, held tight to his stupid phone that he hadn’t replaced when he should have. He should have fixed it immediately, it wouldn’t have gotten this bad, Sam wouldn’t have been alone like this. 

“He’s scared, and he needs me, and I had forty-six voicemails and I didn’t- fuck, Dad, I left him there for three months. Dad, he  _ needed _ me and I left him there, how could I just-”

_ “Hey!” _

Loud voiced, firm toned and he could nearly feel his Dad’s hand on his shoulder, could almost smell his aftershave. He wasn’t sure where John was though, south somewhere, deep south, far from somewhere in Nebraska with a town with a stupid fucking name. 

“Listen to me, Dean, you haven’t let anybody down, you didn’t leave your brother anywhere. You’re panicking son, I need you to breathe for me. You didn’t abandon him. You’re headed to him, right?”

“Yes sir.”

It tasted like panic, kinda felt like panic, the body numbing pulse pound he’d had after that shtriga had gotten in. He knew it on Sam’s face though, the way color faded and his eyes went wide, wondered what his own looked like but he breathed. Sam  _ loved _ him, and Dean had left him there, Dean had chased him there, let him think there was something wrong with him. How could there be anything wrong with someone that beautiful? How could there be anything wrong with  _ Sam? _

“I’m in the Everglades up to my ass in swamp, I need you to get him on your own. Where are you?”

In the parking lot for a piss ant grocery store that looked like it probably doubled for the post office, ramrod straight in his seat with his eyes too wide and his legs bouncing. 

“Nebraska. I can make Wyoming in two hours at the speed limit.”

“At the spe- I thought you were in Vermont? Dean, how long have you been driving?”

He’d crossed roughly one thousand seven hundred miles and the little digital clock read just after eight am. He needed to eat something, he needed to piss, he needed to fill up his gas tank again and get back on the road before he sat too long. He couldn’t afford to fall asleep right now. 

“Twenty-six hours, give or take.”

_ “Damn it, Dean.” _

 

-

 

_ “I think I’m going crazy. I’ve got these stupid little plants on my window so I have something to talk to, because plants do better when you talk to them. Except, it’s...nobody here even tries to talk to me, like they’re scared. But they don’t talk, and you don’t talk and these fucking plants don’t talk. Dean, I...I don’t really recognize my own voice anymore.” _

 

-

 

Cold water dripped down his face for the fifth time since that door had shut behind him and Dean tipped forward, gripped the edge of the sink with wet hands. Maybe it would crack, match the fall apart pieces he’d turned into back in Vermont that felt pasted together with sheer desperation. He hadn’t slept in just over thirty-two hours, like he’d left his self preservation back at that stoplight where he’d sat for too long. But he had miles yet to go, he had an address even from a sleep deprived little brother who talked too much, because Sam had repeated the string of numbers and a street name over and over like he needed to remind himself where he could be safest. 

Because Sam felt like he needed to lock himself away just to feel safe and Dean swore. 

Couldn’t blame the burning in his eyes on exhaustion when he hadn’t even yawned, but he wished he could have. Could have lied to himself, could have pretended that wasn’t a frustrated, self hating kind of tear build pressure, but he knew better. Sam hated when he lied, he was better than that. 

Too cold sink water dripped off his lashes and that would have to be enough, he didn’t have time to fall apart and cry like his brother would have encouraged him to do, didn’t have any other option but to be strong. Because there were still hours between them with miles yet for him to go, he’d already wasted ten minutes in this bathroom with the door locked tight and the water running full force. Sour taste in his mouth that felt an awful lot like the pre-burn of bile, he needed to eat something before he became a danger to himself. 

Thirty-four voicemails deep, he couldn’t listen to them all at once. It hurt too much, cut up his insides in a way that felt like that motel parking lot down in dirty, deep south Louisiana. He drew it out instead, pulled a single stitch from his heart at a time and let the ache fester there for a bit while he tried to catch his breath. But Sam needed him, that that kind of self sabotage felt vaguely like it pushed him harder for as much as it hurt. 

A breath and he lifted his head, found his own eyes in the mirror. Strange, they weren’t bloodshot like he would have expected, strange, there weren’t finger dark bruises beneath them in a dull violet that made the green ever bright. He looked a little crazed, felt just as wired as he looked and Dean held his own gaze as he fished his phone out of his pocket and keyed up the next voicemail. 

_ “Was I always this disappointing? I know I couldn’t keep up, and I didn’t follow orders and that...Dad probably hates me, doesn’t he? I just wanted to make him proud for once, I can’t hunt right so I thought maybe I could do this, maybe I could do something that’d make him happy. But I just let everybody down, fuck, I can’t even run away right. You probably couldn’t get away fast enough.” _

 

-

  
  


Forty-three hours in and he’d blown through some town called Truckee not far past the California-Nevada border a half an hour ago. 

Just shy of a full tank and there was something itching in his bones, that anger still hadn’t faded and that heart crushing desperation still hadn’t let up its grip. He’d made good time and he hadn’t gone fast enough, his legs had gone numb and his hand felt partially seamed to the wheel. He could have been in Sacramento if he hadn’t stopped so many times, if he hadn’t gotten out and breathed something than his own fumes for a minute. 

Trigger happy and impact shy, he’d avoided the last voicemail for nearly an hour. Like he could pretend it wasn’t there if he stopped looking, like he could convince himself he wasn’t so fucking scared. Going out of his mind all alone in his car, it should have been his brother in the passenger seat, it should have been Sam’s knees knocking on the dash from where he’d slouched over, Dean shouldn’t have been alone because Sam never should have left. He should have just said something, opened his mouth or used it, done something other that keep it sealed shut and let that stupid, beautiful boy storm out of that motel room. 

Felt wrong though, hurt, this far west bound and he wanted to hear Sam’s voice for all that he didn’t want to touch that stupid, brand new phone. 

Dean couldn’t pretend though, he’d never been any good at lying to himself and Sam deserved better than that. 

Pushing eighty in a sixty-five and he snatched the phone up off the leather bench. 

“You have one unopened voicemail from six am, December 15th. Would you like to continue?”

Six am, December 15th, he’d been shouldering through the just opened doors of a tech store in too snowy Montpelier, Vermont. He’d been contemplating if he could make a teenager piss his pants, irritated with the world, and his little brother had been trying to call him. His little brother had been calling him, had needed him and Dean hadn’t been able to get to him, not even ten minutes too late.

A dim crackling sound, he’d squeezed his phone too hard and the hard plastic protested loudly against his ear even as he jammed his thumb against the button to continue. 

_ “I feel like myself for the first time in months and all it took was nearly getting eaten. Awesome. That’s great, there’s...there’s a dead werewolf and two chewed up six year olds less than an hour from me because I didn’t clean up like I should have before walking home. And there’s blood on your shirt because I still ruin everything, this is-God, why did I even call? I won’t anymore, I’ll stop, somewhere between the drunken confession and you never picking up, I should have gotten the hint by now. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I think I’m going to get myself killed doing this, and I’m so fucking scared, and I’m sorry. I love you, Dean.” _

His phone had gone quiet, that stupid woman had told him twice that he had no remaining voicemails, but Dean felt like he’d gone numb. 

Sam had sounded like himself, voice flooded with just a touch of that dry humor he couldn’t ever get rid of and piss poor timing. The faint lace of panic soaked through with exasperation, Sam loved him and he’d gotten the wrong message from none of his returned calls, had decided Dean didn’t want him. His baby had gone hunting though, his little brother had thrown himself out into the dark all alone, Sam had gotten  _ hurt _ . 

Sam didn’t have any plans of stopping, Dean knew that tone and he knew the harsh brow and flat mouth that went with it, Sam was going to hunt himself into his grave, alone. Because he didn’t know what else to do now, or maybe he thought he deserved it, but Dean felt a lot like he wanted to puke either way because Sam had squared himself up against a werewolf without anybody to have his back. Sam had marched into his death without Dean, even when they’d promised they’d never leave each other when they were both still small enough to sit in the back of the impala while Dad drove. 

Sam thought he was going to die, and Dean swallowed back a scream. 

 

-

 

It should have taken him just over four hours, closer to five with the traffic he would have hit. 3:40 am had left the California streets surprisingly empty, he’d been able to weave through anything that would have otherwise slowed him down. Barreling into Palo Alto in the city light thin dark and he’d made it in just under three with the impala roaring at ninety. He’d looked at a map back in Valmy, Nevada at the only fill station and he knew these street names even if he didn’t know what they looked like and that was enough. 

The impala drifted around the corner though, too loud engine in an otherwise quiet neighborhood and his rear end swayed a little before he righted, before he rocketed down the street. Just as quick to put on the breaks not a moment later, to slide the car against the curb and yank the keys from the ignition before the wheels even stopped spinning. Car locked and his door shut before the engine could even start ticking and Dean ran like he should have when Sam walked out, long strides into a brick faced building that towered high above him. There was a boy that needed him in there though, there was someone falling apart without him who shouldn’t have ever been this far from reach and the lobby door rattled shut behind him. 

Empty and brightly lit, he took the elevator for a lack of patience to find the stairs and it felt like it crawled to the sixth floor. The doors creaked open before he could start to pull at them though and Dean stomped out into the hall on habitually silent feet. Left rather than right, he needed the south corner of the building based on the room numbers but it felt an awful lot like he couldn’t move fast enough. He still hadn’t taken off his gun from where he’d put it on that morning in Vermont and he was tempted to use it now, fire a shot into the ceiling just to scramble everybody out into the hall. 

Room 606, the door was just as innocent looking as the rest but he knew better, pounded his fist against it with the kind of force that would have woken spirits and felt it rattle in its frame. He couldn’t hear movement though it, couldn’t see light, but he heard the sound of a chair moving, of a chain being slid before a lock was flipped, and the dark inside felt suffocating compared to the overbright of the hall. 

Hazel blue eyes that couldn’t make up their mind, fingertip purple bruises underneath like he hadn’t slept enough. Sharper cheekbones, he’d lost weight, wild, rich brown hair just long enough to curl because he hadn’t cut it. But there was a yet unhealed slash on his jaw, but there were bruises peeking out from beneath the stretched neck of an oversized hoodie that shouldn’t have been there. But Sam stared at him like  _ he _ shouldn’t have been there. 

“Dean?”

Voice terribly small, breathless, it kicked right between the hollow in his ribs, caught him in his lungs and Dean snarled, forced his way forward because any distance between them was too much. 

“God  _ damn it _ , Sammy.”

Little brother just a touch too tall but Dean caught his fingers in those curls and yanked Sam against his chest, foot snapping the door shut as he kissed him like he should have in Louisiana. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All done! Beware the typos

Dean looked like he’d been through the ringer, too wide eyes and a tension taunt face. Like he hadn’t slept, like he hadn’t stopped, and Sam didn’t understand but he didn’t have time. A low sound in his throat that Sam knew all too well but none of that mattered like it should have. Because that was  _ Dean _ , even after all the things he’d said and done, Dean in his suddenly too dark studio apartment like he belonged there. 

His brothers name barely off his lips, but the rest of his question was lost as Dean shoved his way inside like they’d done this before, like he’d been here. 

“God  _ damn it _ , Sammy.”

He’d never heard his name said quite like that, that kind of guttural, that kind of wrecked when he hadn’t even done anything. Because that was a hand in his hair, fingers across his temple and his scalp, that was somebody touching him when nobody else had even tried in weeks, months. His skin felt like fire then, a hand fisting in the front of his sweater with a harsh tug, jerking him around like only ever Dean had been able to do and that was Dean touching him when everyone else had seemed to scared, that was Dean in his room, Dean casting aside personal space that had never existed anyway. He was too tall though, he’d grown since he’d come here and he had to look down a bit even as he caught himself with his hands on those shoulders, but Dean didn’t seem to care. 

His brother just kicked his door shut with a snap that felt final all the way down to his bones, his brother hauled Sam close until that amulet bit against his chest and Sam forgot why he needed to breathe when Dean kissed him like he’d been doing it all their lives. 

Grasping hands and a sharp swell fire booming in his blood, Sam clung with a desperate want to never have to let go. Dean didn’t seem to mind, or maybe his brother had the same idea, demanding fingers in his hair that kept his mouth close like Sam could have possibly wanted to get away. His skin hurt, sweet and warm and alive like he hadn’t felt in weeks apart from those few hours with his own blood on his hands in his too bright bathroom. His eyes burned but he refused to close them, watched his brother in the dark and felt something burn in the back of his skull. But his vision blurred and he whined against Dean’s mouth, couldn’t clench his teeth around the sound when he was too busy trying to keep the other close. 

“Shh, it’s okay baby, I’m here.”

Gentle touch, the hand in his hair curled around the back of his neck with just enough pressure that his body felt weak. He’d started crying, fists curled in the soft white cotton of Dean’s shirt and he tried to pull them closer still. Listened to the only man he’d ever wanted call him  _ baby _ and felt something crack apart within his ribs. 

“I’m sor-”

_ “Don’t you fucking dare apologize to me.” _

His words were violence curling and rough where Sam felt them breathed against his mouth, but Dean used that hand on the back of his neck to press their foreheads together. Like there was nowhere else he would rather have Sam than breathing the same air as him. Sharp pressure on his palm, one hand had fisted around the amulet where it lay just below Dean’s collar and his brothers eyes were green, bright even in the early morning dark and Sam wondered how he’d ever walked away from this, why he’d never even tried. 

But his chest hurt and his throat had gone tight, tears built up from the adrenaline high of a hunt nearly gone wrong for all that his body still hurt in places that it shouldn’t have. Eyes hot, face wet but Dean just kept the two of them close with a steel boned grip that Sam didn’t ever want to break. And Dean let him cry, let him cling even as Sam’s chest heaved and his head swam, it wasn’t until he tipped his own head and the pale moonlight slipped in that he understood why. Because the sharp of his brothers cheeks were wet, tears running down to his chin where they dripped to his shirt, Sam had done that, he’d made his brother cry like that when all he had ever wanted was to make Dean happy. 

A warbling, mournful sound, amulet hold lost to instead take his brothers face in both hands and he swept his thumbs across his skin just to try to chase the tears away. 

“I love you so fucking much, Sammy.”

Hitching words murmured against his mouth where he’d pulled them back together and he wanted, ached for something he’d told himself he couldn’t have. A hand released Dean’s face to catch his waist instead, to curl around to his spine with long fingers and Sam pulled with a kind of strength he never used. A quick inhale and he felt his brother’s chest expand, Dean forced onto his toes where Sam had straightened and dragged him along. The hand at the back of his neck gripped tight, worry short fingernails biting and another clutched swift to his shoulder. 

Dean moaned against his mouth and Sam licked into the soft of his open lips, ever opportunistic and hungry. 

Because his brother had cried and he’d never seen that before, had never known or caused such a reaction, but this Dean cried for him because this was real. This wasn’t panic haze clogging his lungs until he couldn’t breathe and everything tipped sideways, this wasn’t the afterburn of a gasping delirium that made him find himself wedged under the bathroom sink again. He’d never pictured Dean crying, he’d never known what his brothers eyes looked like when they went red rimmed like that and he couldn’t have imagined up the clench of his jaw and the pull of his brow. 

Dean was  _ here _ , physical and real in a way that Sam could put his hands on like he couldn’t an anxiety conjured illusion, Dean had chased him down even after all the things he had said and done. 

Solid against him, warm, both of their faces were wet but Sam used that hold on his brothers jaw to tip Dean’s face up further. Licked into his mouth and felt the velvet plush of his tongue, sliding against his and curling just a bit, he drew his teeth across the plump of Dean’s bottom lip just because he could. Because he could do this, he could have this, older brother arched up into him with a groaning hiss that Sam swallowed readily, used his hand on the low of Dean’s back to crush him a little closer. 

Hands clinging to him, his older brother balancing on his toes and his mouth sticky and hot, Sam had never felt like this before. Something hot flared up through his insides, bubbling over until he pulled away with a gasp. Dean’s eyes were wide, a little wild looking but his mouth was puffed and bruised even in the dark and Sam groaned. Head low and his mouth scrawled across the strong column of his throat like he’d wanted to do for years, stubble under his lips and the harsh pound of his pulse. Teeth then, Sam bit down even as his tongue slashed across the beat of Dean’s jugular beneath thin skin.

_ “Sam!” _

He’d never heard his brother cry his name like that before for all that he knew that tone from closed bathroom doors and long dark nights in the bed across from him. He wanted it, wanted more, wanted to pull himself into his brothers skin so he couldn’t get left behind again and share the beat of his heart so he couldn’t end up forgotten, so he couldn’t run away. Dean panted in his ear, heavy breathing that Sam felt all the way to his bones and a slow, hesitant grind pushed his brothers hips against his. 

“Dean,”

A groan, low and reverberating against his lips, the hand in his hair clenched. Pulled a little and he knew that feeling even if he’d never had it like this, Sam moaned at the sharp feeling but that was his brothers cock, fattened up against his. Heady pleasure that sang across his nerves, his fingers were going to leave bruises on his brothers spine. But Dean was hard because of him and it didn’t seem to matter that he’d pulled the other onto his toes, Dean braced himself with that hand on his shoulder and ground their clothed cocks together with purpose then.

“Fuck, Sammy, you sure about this sweetheart?”

Still in his doorway and they’d bump against his kitchen counter if they moved just right. And that was good enough, that was close like he’d wanted and that would do. Quick movements and he caught Dean by his thighs, hauled his brother against him with enough force that the other gasped, swore. Hands on his shoulders that clung tight, he didn’t give his brother a chance, lifted him enough to deposit him on the counter and worm between his spread thighs. 

“You came for me.”

“Samm-”

His brothers mouth tasted like honey, or maybe it was just nostalgia from moments he remembered best. The crackle fizz of fireworks and little honey sticks cut open between his teeth but he couldn’t see like he wanted to. His brothers touch had gentled like Dean always swore he couldn’t do, hands fisted in the front of his sweatshirt and Sam stretched out his left hand so he could flip the light switch. 

Dean’s eyes had never been fair, glass bottle green flecked with gold, that glitter dust matched the freckles on Dean’s cheeks. His brothers eyes were bright with the sort of sleep deprived craze that Sam remembered from New Years spent at Blue Earth once, his skin flushed with a crawling pink that Sam wanted to chase beneath his collar. A hand across the bite hot flush of his throat and Dean’s head tipped a bit, leaned into the touch of a hand on his jaw and a thumb that swept across his kiss-bruised mouth. Sam’s fingers slid into his short shorn hair and he wanted to taste his mouth again, wanted to kiss him because he could now, because Dean let him. 

“I don’t know how far you drove but you came for me. After everything I did and said and you pound on my door at 3 am. I love you, I want this.”

Crystal bright gaze but Dean held the front of his sweatshirt in two tight fists like Sam might want to get away. Harsh tug, insistent, his brother pulled him closer still until they were chest to chest. Until Sam’s blood sparked hot again and he moaned at the denim rough catch of their cocks together, open mouthed with fingers curling along his brothers scalp. Lean leaned into him, or maybe he caught him when Sam swayed forward, strong thighs catching around his hips to reel him in even closer, Sam’s free hand slammed down on the counter beside his brothers hip. 

“Would have come sooner Sammy, I swear. Didn’t have my phone until you got chewed up by that fucking wolf, I wouldn’t have ever left you this long if I thought you needed me.”

_ “Dean.” _

Abuse hot and tongue slick, Dean’s mouth was soft, riptide consuming and Sam clutched at the small of his back, the nape of his neck. Something to hold on to, anything to try and keep himself afloat, but clinging to his brother like a life preserve wouldn’t help him any when Dean was the reason he drowned. 

“I love you too much to leave you behind.”

A bitten off, sharp rumble that he felt in his throat, his chest, Sam pulled maybe a little too hard, yanked Dean against him with maybe a little too much force. For their teeth clacked together through their kiss, he could feel the grasping dig of his brothers fingertips against his shoulders where Dean held on, but his brothers mouth was hot. Dean’s moan caught on his tongue but he swallowed the taste of it, kept his brother close where he couldn’t lose him again. The skin at the dip in the base of his spine was hot, white cotton ridden up and Sam’s fingers touched body warmed denim, sank beneath the waistband of his brothers jeans when Dean’s back arched like that, when he pressed their cocks together even as his teeth pulled at Sam’s mouth like he knew just what to do. 

A filthy moan, that was him, his throat vibrating like that, his mouth that went momentarily slack so Dean’s tongue could slip across his teeth before gliding across his tongue. His hips rolled with it, a sticky, wet feeling spawning from where their mouths met dripping all the way down his spine and Sam languished in it. Pulled his older brother fast against him with fingers slipping between the taunt cheeks of his ass to influence the deep, slow grind that had taken them. 

Dean’s hands on his jaw and he didn’t want to stop this, never wanted to leave this feeling. 

“Fuck, Sammy.”

Hot skin and he grasped tight, rolled their cocks together despite the denim between them and felt Dean knot a hand in his hair. 

“Yeah?”

Tongue across his brothers lower lip, sweeping slow across the kiss hot skin and his mouth slipped lower. Dean’s head tilted with him though, bared his throat for Sam’s tongue and teeth once more and he skated across it. Latched onto hot skin with a little too much bite and felt his brother cry out for all that he heard it. Dean’s hips insistent against his, his body just barely balanced on the counter and Sam readily took his weight, tasted the rumble of a moan. 

“Yeah baby, fuck, lemme down, lemme down.”

He didn’t want to, loathed to, tasted the way his brother spoke. Dean pulled at his hair though, caused a spike of pleasure down his spine and he leaned away at Sam’s turn to moan, used that moment to wriggle off the counter. They slid against each other pressued up tight, body heat and just enough friction that he chased his brothers mouth. Or maybe Dean held him still, a hand in his hair and a roll to their hips that he didn’t know who had started, he crowded Dean’s shorter frame against the countertop.

A laughing, fluttering moan in response, a sharp shark grin but Dean’s eyes were molten and warm, and his kiss tasted like the love that Sam had always craved. 

“Easy, tiger.” Tight grip on his hip, twisted fingers in his hair and even as Dean pulled his face back down for another sticky kiss he used the way their hips had slotted together to force Sam to walk backwards. Swaying motions, a thigh between his and hot breath on his jaw, he wanted, he wanted. “Not goin’ anywhere, I’m right here.”

Right here, like he wouldn’t leave again. 

Right here, like Sam wouldn’t be alone again. 

Tangled feet, and another sip from his brothers smile, he found the mattress with the back of his legs. Quick to try to catch himself but Dean just laughed at him and the way his hands clutched at his brothers back, his shoulders. Pushed him a little with a hand on his chest so Sam sat on his bed with a heavy fall, stared up at his brother like Dean made up his whole world. And he did, always had even when he hadn’t known it, especially when those hunt calloused hands cupped his face so Dean could kiss him again. 

“Let me see your stitches.”

The same voice as before, thick edged and curling and Sam leaned into it, couldn’t help himself. Dean smiled at him like he knew, like he got it and maybe he did, had said he loved him, he would come for him. He  _ had _ come for him, and that was something cotton soft and soothing through his veins for all that his insides were still hot. Dean’s hands skimmed his shoulders then, his chest, Sam could have done it himself but his brother had always been like that, tactile and concerned. So his shoulders curled in and he lifted his arms so Dean could pull at his hoodie until it cleared his chest, his shoulders. 

_ “Samuel.” _

A heap of soft maroon fabric on the white tile floor, Dean’s hands on his bare chest, tracing the stitches that cut down his left side across jagged clawmark gouges. They burned, hurt like any other hunting wound ever had, but the sutures were tight and the cuts clean. Wildfire on his skin, Dean’s fingers left flames wherever they touched, and maybe it was ownership or maybe it was spite, but his brother clamped a hand down over the raised flesh even as he gave a kiss to Sam’s mouth. It was something though, a feeling he couldn’t name even if he understood it, followed it and wanted it when Dean’s mouth scrawled wet kisses down his throat, his chest.

Waistband of his jeans undone and he could take a hint, quick fingers catching on the loops of his jeans and the elastic of his briefs so he could yank them both off. They caught at his feet though, left there because there were freckles on Dean’s stomach, bursts of them that slipped around his sides and climbed up his chest. They disappeared beneath the fabric slung low on his hips and Sam wanted to taste them. White cotton dropped next to his hoodie and Dean shook his head a little, smiled a little while he stamped one foot in the pool of denim and cotton at Sam’s feet and yanked until it hit the side of his desk. 

Naked and he didn’t care, wanted to touch his brothers stomach, his shoulders, drag his tongue across a pink nipple to see how it tasted. Hot hands on his knees, Dean had other plans, another too quick kiss to Sam’s mouth as his legs were pushed apart. Hot, hot hands on his thighs and his skin was cold, he’d forgotten just how cold he was, hadn’t even really felt it anymore. But maybe Dean did, he must have, warm hands on his inner thighs even as his own tried to catch in his brother short hair, tried to pull him back in for another kiss. 

“Oh,  _ fuck.” _

Green, green eyes, Dean glanced up at him while dragging that mouth across the soft skin on his inner thigh. Tucked up on his knees, broad shoulders crowded between Sam’s legs where they kept them spread wide and he swore. Arched into the wet crawl of Dean’s mouth across his skin and tried still to get a handhold on the back of his head. 

“Not yet, sweetheart.”

Wicked, cruel, Sam couldn’t help the wheezing laugh he gave at his brothers behavior, a little crazed and a little desperate. His thighs clenched tight, muscles in his abdomen jumping as a slick, wet tongue licked at the shaft of his cock, followed the vein on the underside from base to tip. His whole body tried to come off the bed with it, his brothers mouth felt electric, but Dean just watched him with those eyes and forced his legs apart further, knees locked around bare shoulders. 

That moan was him, he could feel it low in his chest and arching, spilled filthy and fast from his lax mouth. He got a bit of a hold there if only in how his fingers curled around the back of his brothers head and Sam’s hip flexed off the bed. Dean’s mouth was sin, wet hot and velvet soft against his skin and he stared down at the way his brother blinked, how his pink lips sank down, down until his brothers wicked tongue wriggled at the base of his cock and Sam swore. 

Dean hummed, too green eyes staring up at him while his own wanted to roll. 

“God damn it, Dean!”

The corners of his eyes crinkled like he would have laughed, but Dean just seemed to settle in, shoulders shimmying a bit before Sam could see his spine sway. His hips followed, he knew they did, but he couldn’t see his ass for all that he could see part of the tops of his thighs and Sam wanted to touch more than he could reach. His thighs shook instead from his effort to keep still and Dean must have noticed. Warm fingers skated around his hips, slipped back until his fingertips grasped at Sam’s ass and pulled, forced his hips forward on a wobbling thrust. 

A quiet gagging sound at the too deep thrust and his chest clenched, his hands pulled at Dean’s head to try and get his mouth free. But those hands held tight to him, but Dean looked up at him with those bright eyes and moaned, muffled like Sam had never thought to hear it. Intent in his gaze though, something blistering and trusting and Sam knew his brother even if he didn’t know him like this. 

Hand on the back of his head, a snap of his hips, Dean’s tongue skimmed the skin of his balls and his brother moaned. Guttural, low, Sam watched as a tension he hadn’t recognized previously seemed to drain almost instantly from his shoulders. A bit of a glaze took his eyes, a quick splash of blush violent against his freckled cheeks, but Dean moaned again with another thrust of his hips off the bed, another. Until an easy, rolling motion overtook him, one hand braced on the bed just behind him while the other threaded just enough into Dean’s short hair. Grasping hands at his ass where it cut to his hips but they slid, slipped until his brother held to his inner thighs with a grip that promised bruises. 

“Fuck baby, I wish you could see yourself.” He needed to stop, he needed to get ahold of himself, but the wet sounds Dean’s throat made with every deep swallow of his cock were enough to make his gut wind tight. Red cheeked and wide spread lips, he’d always thought his brother was pretty, had even imagined him like this, but Sam had always done better with a visual. “God, the fucking mouth on you,  _ Dean.” _

Another moan for an answer, wet and low and his brother seemed to enjoy this just as much as Sam did, like having his throat stuffed full like this was something he’d thought about before. A tease, he hadn’t thought of it like that and Sam fucked up again into his brothers wet mouth. Saliva had spilled past his lips, wet mouth and wet cheeks and Sam wanted to lick it off his face, wanted to follow it with his tongue and see if it tasted more like himself or more like the firework honey he now knew to be Dean. 

“Fuck,  _ fuck _ , get up here.”

Hard curling fingers on the back of Dean’s head and he used that, yanked his brothers mouth free and listened to that despondent whine like Dean couldn’t help himself. There were going to be bruises on Dean’s nape, but his brother either didn’t notice or didn’t care and Sam used that handhold to guide him even as his wet cock smacked against his own abdomen from the force. Crowded his brother into his lap but Dean followed easily enough, thighs spread wide over Sam’s own and his knees braced on the bed. 

His mouth was hot and loose against Sam’s tongue, sticky saliva dripped down his chin to smear across Sam’s face but Dean grappled at his shoulders and moaned into his mouth, body tight strung and leaning. 

_ “Sammy.” _

Moth to a flame in his lap, but he wanted, he wanted and Sam slipped a hand down the back of his brothers jeans, felt the way that Dean arched up against him. Chased his mouth and tried still to catch a handhold in his hair, Dean held onto his shoulders and slicked their tongues together. His brother was sweat damp skin and fingerprint bruises and Sam’s index and middle fingers made it far enough to skate across his rim, the angle pulled tight at his elbow. 

“Fuck, yeah, just like that.”

But Dean swore, teeth dragging sharp against Sam’s lower lip while his hips tried to thrust back against the pressure. Like he wanted more, like it wasn’t quite enough, Sam wasn’t sure which one of them moaned but he didn’t care, worked his fingers in slow circles along the heat of his rim. Felt Dean shake in his lap and heard his jeans creak with how the elder tried to move, perched on Sam’s spread legs like they’d done this before. Like they knew this dance with each other just as well as they seemed to know it without, but the denim clung course and stiff against his cock and Sam didn’t want to come like this. 

“Get up.”

“Sa-”

Dean’s eyes were green, pinpoint pupils in the bright white light of his white walled room, that pink blush carried down his throat and seeped onto his chest with a warm color. Sam wanted to taste it, wanted to follow the flush with his tongue but there were other things he could be doing. So he gripped a little harder, pulled back with just enough force that Dean’s whole body want with it and his hands braced on Sam’s bare kneecaps. 

“Get up and take off your pants before I rip them.”

That made sense, seemed to be that push Dean needed because his ankles unhooked and his legs swung down. He was hard, obviously so, plumped up fat beneath his jeans and Sam wanted to wrap his fist around his brothers cock and see what color the head was. Dean stood up and took a step back and Sam pulled his legs up instead, twisted around onto his knees and crawled up until he could pluck the aloe vera tube from the windowsill. It had helped his stitches just enough and their Dad had always smelled faintly like it, crisp and clean and it had kept the sutures from itching thus far even if they pulled. 

“You’re so fuckin’ bossy.”

“Yeah well you’re sho- _ ah!” _

Weight on the bed behind him and the mattress shifted, hands on his ass that pulled his cheeks apart, Dean’s tongue was molten and wet where it dragged across his rim. His arms shook, threatened to come out from under him and Sam moaned at the feeling. His back arched into it, tilted his hips up and pressed himself a little further against Dean’s soft lips and wriggling tongue. Head hung low, that aloe tube clutched in his fist, he hadn’t expected this even if he wanted it, ached deep in his gut, but they could come back to this later if Dean would let him. 

So he reached back even as he pushed himself upright, caught a scant fistful of Dean’s hair and pulled his brothers mouth away from his ass only to bite at his lips instead. Dean hummed low in his throat though, pleased with himself, and Sam had to drop the aloe tube to catch the fist that snuck around his ribs to try and fist his cock. Because Dean had ideas about this just like he did, but for all that his brother had run to him, Sam had been ready to die. 

He wanted to see what his brothers face looked like when he came.  

“Wait, wait.”

Hands off him suddenly, Dean’s face lost a bit of its color and his features pulled tight, a little panicked like he’d been burned. A little panicked like he thought Sam had changed his mind, didn’t want him. A softer touch and he caught Dean’s jaw, pulled him just close enough to kiss him while he turned, brought them chest to chest and nudged his legs between his brothers. Hesitant hands on his shoulders now like Dean was unsure, but his kisses were soft, but his mouth was warm. He came forward willingly when Sam pulled him, tried to lay himself back against the bed but his body was hot and their unclothed cocks ground together. 

Dean moaned into his mouth, dirty and low, all hesitance lost.

Change of plans then. 

“God, you’re impossible.”

A particularly low grind and there must have been something in his voice because Dean just grinned, all white teeth and cock sucking pink lips and Sam didn’t know if he’d ever been this in love. But Dean looked far too pleased with himself, Sam’s face a little slack with pleasure and his blood singing, there was a tight lock feeling in his chest because his brother was beautiful. Unfairly so, freckled cheeks and summer green eyes, this felt like the only home he’d ever known.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing. Fuckin pretty baby, don’t know how long I’ve been wanting this.”

Desire and affection felt the same when they bloomed around his heart like that. Quick to grab his brother by the hip and pull their bodies together harder, Sam found the aloe tube again and watched Dean’s grin widen. Listened to his brother moan as their cockheads rubbed together and he worked one handed, the fingers on his brothers hip slipping a little further so he could pull at his ass even as he clicked open the aloe tube. And Dean noticed, because Dean knew everything, watched Sam tip the tube around so he could squeeze a bit of it out onto his fingers. His brothers palms on his chest where Dean braced himself and Sam found his mouth, or maybe Dean found his. He wasn’t sure, it didn’t matter, not when Dean kissed him like that and all Sam tasted was firework honey. Sticky fingered and searching, his fingers skated where he wanted them to on the first pass, but Dean arched against him all the same and that helped just enough. Fingertips pressing across Dean’s rim and they caught there, curled just enough that the tip of his middle finger tested at the tight band of muscle and sank. 

_ “Yes.” _

Hands pushing a little harder at his chest and Sam watched as his brother sat up just right, propped himself up until his spine arched and his hips dropped. Shallow thrusts with his finger pressed deeper with every pass, joined by a second when his rim felt slick and loose enough. Dean’s fingers curled, fingertips catching on his collarbones with the sharp bite promise of nails but he didn’t care, not when Dean’s mouth hung open like that, not when his brothers fire green eyes watched him like that. 

“More, more.”

More like he meant it, more like he wanted Dean to feel it for longer than just this. More like he had plans to fuck the man with more than just his fingers, the muscles in his arm flexed as Sam did just that though, palm cracking audibly against his brothers ass. But his grin was wild, gaping while he panted and pressed back into it, tried to fuck himself just as much as Sam tried to make sure he remembered this feeling. A flash of pink tongue against a glint of teeth, their cocks rut together in a precome slide and he wasn’t sure which one of them moaned. Dean surely, probably, but he couldn’t be sure and that wasn’t enough, he twisted his fingers just enough on the outward drag and found the plump gland he’d been looking for. 

And Sam watched as Dean’s mouth fell open wide, his hips stuttering across Sam’s abdomen. 

He watched his brothers cock pulse, pinkened head weeping out a gush of precome even as his rim vice gripped around Sam’s fingers, clamped down as if he’d had any intent of moving the pressure off of his prostate. 

Nearly wailing and throaty, Sam hadn’t dreamed his brother could make that sort of sound, wondered if Dean had ever even heard it himself. 

“Oh God, oh my God, o-fuck me, Sammy please,  _ Sammy _ !”

Fat globs of precome smeared across his abdomen and Sam watched as his arms shook, fingers curling and his hips chasing the feeling even as Dean’s head hung low. He wanted to make him cry like that for hours, too much on his prostate and not enough on his cock, wondered if he could get his brother to come like this. Wondered how far open his mouth would fall, if his eyes would roll back in his skull, the sort of sounds that Dean would make while he shook apart in Sam’s hands. He’d wanted this since he was twelve years old and heard his brother in the shower, he had enough fantasies that could wait a little longer than they already had. 

“Shh, I’m here.”

Careful where he sat up, fingers still circling against Dean’s prostate while the other hand caught at his lower back to keep him steady, it was better like this. The angle forced Dean to sit upright, hands slipping against Sam’s chest even as his weight fell harder, as he took those two fingers a little deeper into his tight heat. A heavy groan low in his throat and his hands caught Sam’s jaw, his throat, pulled his head down so Dean could claim his mouth like Sam had started to claim his body. Tongue and teeth and swollen lips, demanding fingertips on his skin and he wondered if this was what it felt like to lose himself. 

Wondered if he was supposed to care when all he did was chase his brothers mouth with his own. 

“Fuck me before I make you.”

Dean’s cockhead worked itself against his abdomen with every pleasure panic thrust of his brothers hips, he could feel it, and Sam almost wanted to let him come like this. Wanted Dean to fall apart on nothing more than his fingers, but he’d always followed orders when they come from his brother, carefully phrased things that often came out more as challenges unless their lives were on the line. He’d never been able to say no before and he didn’t know why he’d thought he could now, Dean all flushed lips and freckles spread out in his lap. Impatient bastard though, the both of them hadn’t ever been the type to stop and wait when something set their blood on fire and he didn’t know why he’d thought this could be any different.

His fingers came free with a wet sound and a quiet sigh from his brothers pink mouth against his own. Fingers spread at the base of Dean’s spine just enough to keep him up, hands catching at Sam’s shoulders once more for something to hold while his bare feet skimmed cold toes across the small of his back. 

“I love you.”

Because Dean needed to know, as if he hadn’t said it before. Like he hadn’t gutted himself in enough of those voicemails already, but everything seemed to soften then. Dean smiled, fingers shifting until they held the back of his neck and his brother shouldn’t have been that beautiful, it wasn’t fair. And maybe Dean felt the same, overwhelmed and anxious because there was something shaken to his smile even if he gave it freely to Sam like he never did with anyone else. Dean smiled like he got it, like he knew, and Sam’s arm curled a little further, hugged Dean against him and he tipped his face up into his brothers kiss. Felt a heart thunder beat pound against his chest and couldn’t tell who it belonged to, it didn’t matter, he didn’t care. 

“Love you, Samm- _ ah!” _

Loosened rim and the head of his cock slipped in easy enough, smeared with aloe gel to ease the way. The flare of the head caught though, like he hadn’t stretched him well enough, like he hadn’t prepared him right but Dean didn’t seem to care. Let up with how he’d put his weight on Sam’s shoulders to instead sink down, his brother cried out when the head popped through and gravity took course. Head falling back, mouth open wide and Sam could just barely see his pupils bloom wide until only a single band of fairytale green remained. He just slid though, took Sam’s dick like they’d been doing this for years until his ass sat flush against Sam’s thighs, his breathing sounded hiccupping and thin. 

Like he needed to catch his breath, like he needed a minute, but Sam couldn’t wait then and he couldn’t wait now. 

Feet planted on the bed enough to get his grip and it bent his knees, forced Dean a little further forward into his lap. His cock bounced against Sam’s abdomen, his fingers dug into the meat of Sam’s shoulders and the sound Dean made was delirious, nearly wounded. Sam wanted more of it almost immediately, more of the way his brother shivered in his lap and his hips hitched up, one hand braced on the bed to give himself just a little bit of leverage. He could see his brothers tongue where he tried to lick at his lips, where Dan tried to catch his breath, but he gripped Sam’s cock like a vice and his rim pulsed, how was he supposed to hold himself back like this?

Dean  _ had _ told him to fuck him. 

One hand braced and the other clutched at Dean’s lower back and he did just that, found a rhythm in how his hips snapped off the bed. Audible, he could hear his thighs against his brothers ass, felt Dean’s feet catch at the base of his spine even as his fingers promised to leave claw marks on his shoulders, it was worth it. Perfect even, because his brothers breathing sounded punched out of him, staccato moans of his name that couldn’t seem to fully form and his eyes had blown wide, his mouth fallen open even as Dean grappled at him. A little startled from the wide of his gaze but more than pleased with himself, a faint laugh on his tongue like he couldn’t get it out all the way. 

“F-fuck, fuck, Samm-Sammy!”

Hands slipping on his shoulders, a knee knocked against his side, his stitches were going to tear open if they weren’t careful but Sam didn’t care. Because Dean’s nails dug in just enough and he tried to get his feet under him just right, a change in motion that nearly cost Sam his rhythm but Dean fucked himself back onto Sam’s cock just as eagerly as Sam fucked into him. Tipped forward then like he couldn’t keep himself upright, fallen against Sam’s chest and he took the weight of him readily, happily with a touch that would leave bruises and a mouth that smeared panting kisses across his freckled temple. Dean’s breath hot against his throat, open mouthed and moaning still for all that he clutched at Sam and clung. 

The angle wasn’t right though, Dean didn’t dance like he had when Sam’s fingers had dragged against his prostate, this wasn’t good enough. Sam wanted more, wanted to hear his brother cry out like that again, wanted to see if he could make his eyes roll. He wanted to pull him apart just so Dean could return the favor later, his own rim still wet from his brothers tongue, Sam could do better than this. 

“Hold on.”

“What do you mean  _ hold on?” _

Teeth dragged across his jugular when Dean spoke like that, all laid out on his chest and no, no he hadn’t been doing his job right, not if Dean could talk to him. Not if Dean could run his mouth like that and cop an attitude like he’d always done when he didn’t like something. Hand still low on his back and Sam surged upright, up onto his knees until Dean left the bed entirely, ankles locking tight  just above Sam’s ass and his retort a wheezed, punched moan as the motion impaled him a little further. 

_ “Sam!” _

He’d forgotten just how green his sheets were. Or maybe he’d forgotten just how green Dean’s eyes were, a memory lapse somewhere in between that he couldn’t ignore as he watched his brothers head his the mattress. His hands leg up on Sam’s shoulders to instead fist in those very sheets, fingers curling in the cotton while he stared up at Sam. Sam, who got his legs under himself enough to lift onto his knees, reached around and got a hand under either of Dean’s thighs and pulled. Disengaged the ankles knotted low on his spine and pressed instead, listened to the low whine the other made as he kneed closer, as he tipped his thighs up, up, up until they pressed against Dean’s straining stomach. 

His back had half curled off the bed, ass in the air, but Sam could see the way his cock looked impossibly wide around the pink stretch of Dean’s rim and he groaned. 

“So fuckin’ pretty like this.”

Soft pink bled into red, the blush across Dean’s cheeks and throat deepened until his freckles looked like glitter against the flush. He wouldn’t meet Sam’s gaze though, head turned to the side even as he panted a little, mouth pressed thin like he didn’t have words to respond. Because compliments had always been a rare thing in their lives, because self worth had always been in short supply. Because Dean probably thought he didn’t deserve it just like Sam wasn’t sure if he’d done enough to earn his brothers love, but Dean couldn’t ever be allowed to think like that. 

Leaned forward and his abdomen clenched with the effort, stitches pulled just enough to twist and sting but the sharp ache was worth it for the way he could give a kiss to Dean’s jaw, his throat. He could taste his pulse like this, he could hear his hands pull at the sheets, and Sam rested back on his knees even as he rocked his hips forward. Watched his cock sink past the stretch of Dean’s rim and his brothers back arch off the bed, open mouthed on a moan that seemed to go on and on and on. His thighs fell apart then, like some of the tension that had started to work back into his hunters body had seeped clean from his bones and Dean was soft to the touch, as pliant as Sam had ever known him to be. This was special, this was precious, he wondered if Dean had ever shared this before or if Sam was the lucky one for a change.

Splayed legs and hands fisted in green cotton and for all that Dean couldn’t get enough leverage like this, Sam had twisted him up perfectly, knew from the glaze that crept across his eyes that he’d found his prostate, fat weight of his cock insistent. 

Chest heaving, hands pulling but his moan was filthy, his mouth tongue slicked and wet and Sam wanted to kiss him. 

_ “Oh fuck, Sam.” _

“Yeah, just like that.” He couldn’t kiss him like this and so Sam put his mouth to the inside of his knee instead, the start of his thigh. He dragged his teeth there, sliding kisses with every rolling thrust of his hips while he marveled in the way Dean writhed beneath him. Clenched pleasure tight but his hands were still on the bed like he didn’t trust himself to reach out, to touch like Sam wanted him to. “God, Dean.”

So he spread his own knees a little bit, got better grip beneath himself and leaned back just enough that he could put his weight into the way he drove his cock into his brothers heat. A sharp, arcing moan and Dean was beautiful with only his shoulders touching the bed, with his eyes clenched shut and his cock leaking a well of precome where it bounced against his sternum. Sam wanted to see him come like this, cock smeared against his own skin and his body dancing beneath Sam’s touch. 

“Holy shit, holy shi-fucking fuck, Sammy where did you even, right there. Oh my God, right there, feel fucking perfect.”

Hands in the sheets with a palm dangerously close to his babbling mouth, Sam wouldn’t be able to hear him if Dean strained much further, almost like he was desperate to shift over onto his stomach so Sam couldn’t see his face. There were going to be fingerprint bruises on his hips, his thighs, markings from where Sam had taken his claim like this was his right, and it was, wasn’t it? Dean had let him have this just like Dean had shared his heart, and it was a gift that Sam wanted to return, wanted to kiss along his brothers trembling abdomen while Dean’s fingers knotted in his hair. 

“Look at me.”

His own voice low and his chest heaving, his thighs burned, his gut tight, he couldn’t do this much longer, he couldn’t last like this. Not with Dean all spread out and moaning, his heat clenching wildly with every thrust like he didn’t want Sam to leave. He was only eighteen, how was he supposed to keep this up?

“Sam-”

“Look. At.  _ Me.” _

Each word punctured with a hard, grinding thrust and Dean’s hands left the bed then to plant on Sam’s abdomen, his chest. Like he needed something to hold onto, something to fight the way that Sam had started to force the two of them across the mattress. Nails on his skin, Dean’s thighs straining against his arms but he did then, he did, bottomless pupils and a wire thin band of glistering emerald. Gaping mouth and bared teeth like he wanted to sink them into Sam’s shoulder and Sam wanted to kiss him, wanted to make him come. 

_ “Fuck you.” _

Sam grinned, couldn’t help himself, bright heat in his belly that felt fit to burst and a pounding in his chest where his heart tried to get away. Tipped Dean’s hips up a little further and ground the heavy weight of his cockhead across his brothers swollen prostate, watched Dean’s eyes widen. 

“I love you.”

Sunburn hot and chokepoint tight, his pupils constricted to near nothing until all Sam could see was green, green, green. And then his head tipped up, his eyes rolled back, Dean’s body snapping a little bit harder into that arch it had taken as his fat, untouched cock pulsed fat globs of pearly come onto his sweat slicked skin. His neighbors were going to hear if he still had any, but Sam didn’t care, fuck it and fuck them, could barely hear his own swearing over the way Dean screamed out his name like that. 

_ “Sam!” _

Tipped forward until he’d folded his writhing, panting brother in half with his own forehead to Dean’s shoulder. Shaking hands buried in his hair and it was like he couldn’t breathe, like his heart hadn’t beat right up until now and Sam came on a muffled cry. Everything went cotton edged and white, couldn’t hear past the slodge of his blood in his veins and the aftershocks that licked across his nerves. But he didn’t need when he had Dean like this, pressed against him skin and close enough he couldn’t lose him ever again. 

“-ont leave you again. I’m not goin’ anywhere Sammy, getting you outta this God damn school and taking you with me. If you think I’m leaving you here than you got another thing comin, I can’t feel my fucking legs Samuel, do you know how useless I am right now?”

“St’p talkin’.”

Mouth to his brothers shoulder, tongue loose across his clavicle and Sam hadn’t realized just how tense he had been until now. Like he’d gotten used to it, like he hadn’t cared, pent up and ready to die like that. His stitches had come loose, he could feel blood on his side, could see it smeared across Dean’s thigh. Hands questing though, curling until they wrapped around Dean’s ribs so he could cling. 

His sob was impossibly loud in the breath catch quiet of the room and then he couldn’t stop, didn’t know which direction to lean when Dean’s arms banded tight around him. A single hand carded in his hair, the other splayed across his spine, Dean made the choice for him. Pressed him closer against his chest despite the way that it moved Sam’s flagging cock must have moved inside him like Dean didn’t mind. His brothers heart raced wild beneath his mouth and Dean turned his head, pressed a long kiss to Sam’s temple that didn’t let up. 

“It’s okay Sammy, I’m here now.”


End file.
